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30 Oct 10 - 09:09 PM (#3019632) Subject: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,PHGH Does anybody have to chords to The Banks of Green Willow? I would be very grateful if anybody could send me some. Regards, PHGH. |
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30 Oct 10 - 09:36 PM (#3019657) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Joe Offer Hi, PHGH- As you can see from the links above, there are many versions of the song. Is there any particular version of the song you'd like to sing? -Joe- |
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31 Oct 10 - 06:12 PM (#3020307) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,PHGH The one that has the same tune as the George Butterworth composition. Thank you :-) |
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01 Nov 10 - 03:47 AM (#3020535) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Anglo "The one that has the same tune as the George Butterworth composition" which you would expect us all to know. Butterworth _collected_ at least two versions of this. If you want to know which chords he used to harmonize the particular one he arranged, I suggest you invest in the sheet music and analyze it. |
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01 Nov 10 - 04:07 AM (#3020541) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Jim Carroll "I suggest you invest in the sheet music and analyze it." Not an attitude you usually encounter on Mudcat. Can't help, as I don't play an instrument, but I would if I could. Jim Carroll |
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01 Nov 10 - 06:35 AM (#3020595) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Artful Codger I assume this is the tune you're referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSZoWrQhsws You can probably find the bare tunes Butterworth collected at the EFDSS Take Six site--without "investing"--though you'd still have to figure out suitable chords. The basic chords (before all the modernistic stuff and modulations) don't sound to be much beyond the usual 3-chord minor set with a few relative major chords thrown in. (The relative major is the major key three half-steps up). The tune strikes me as Dorian, but harmonically that's close to minor, so if you experiment with the usual suspects in your chosen ("minor") key and the relative major, you should be able to work it out. If this sounds too challenging, and if you intend to sing along (so that range is an issue), it might help to state what key you'd like to play the song in. |
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01 Nov 10 - 07:50 AM (#3020629) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: pavane My program HARMONY can generate chords to accompany a tune. It does know about Modal scales (e.g. Dorian) as well as major & minor keys. You just have to feed it the tune in a suitable format (abc or MIDI) You can download a copy for a free trial from my site |
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01 Nov 10 - 11:32 AM (#3020767) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters The version played on the Youtube clip sounds to me like the version Butterworth collected from Mr. & Mrs. Cranstone, give or take a few tweaks. Go to Take 6 and search under Child 24, for this version and many others with an essentially similar shape, from the Hammonds and George Gardiner. This one isn't Dorian, though - plain old Ionian, I think. The other one Butterworth collected is Mixolydian, and the one from Vaughan Williams is a bit of a mix. The first time I encountered this song was the version recorded by Tony Rose many years ago, which has always been the one against which I measure all the variants. His concertina accompaniment used nothing outside the standard three-chord trick. |
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01 Nov 10 - 11:53 AM (#3020785) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion I agree that Tony Rose's version is very fine. It is the one I always sing ~ tune, anyhow, though the words have probably varied somewhat. I sing it on my Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/mgmyer |
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01 Nov 10 - 12:53 PM (#3020839) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Anglo OK Jim, it was late and I was tired. Perhaps I should have made the effort and searched for a YouTube video that I didn't know existed. But I considered that more information from the requester was not unreasonable. Anyway, to answer the question, it's arranged in A, and a simple way to accompany it would be A |A |Bm |E | A |A |Bm-E| A || or capoed up 2 frets G |G |Am |D | G |G |Am-D| G || Like Brian, I would categorize it as plain major/Ionian. Hope this is useful. |
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01 Nov 10 - 01:19 PM (#3020856) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,leeneia Hello, PHGH. I hope you are still with us. I've studied the music at Artful Codger's link (thanks Artful.) Butterworth collected two different versions of the tune, one from Mr. and Mrs. Cranstone and one from Mr. Cornford. The tune from the Cranstones is simpler as far as notes & chords go, but it has the problem that it has a huge range - an octave plus a fifth. (I suspect it started out life as a dance tune, not a vocal tune.) No wonder it took two people, one male and one female, to provide it. That's the tune Butterworth used for the symphonic composition which you can hear on YouTube (thanks again to Artful.) I hope you can read music some, PHGH, because now it gets more complicated. The Cranstone's version was in the key of A, which has three sharps. (I don't know what key the symphonic piece is in, but I suspect Butterworth changed it from A, because it showcases clarinet, and clarinets like flat keys.) But let's pretend the symphonic piece is still in the key of A. Butterworth has the orchestra play the Cranstone's tune for a while, then he took the sharps off the C's to make a related tune. The piece is so long because the orchestra plays the tune in A and then in the strange new "key" with only F# and G#. Various surging and twiddling passages prepare us for the move from one type to the other. If anybody is interested in a MIDI of the Cranstone's tune, plus chords, I can send it to Joe for posting. At any rate, I think I can assign chords to it. I warn you that it's got such a big range that it would take an opera singer to sing it. However, nothing says you can't do it with your niece that plays the flute, your neighbor the fiddler, or on your accordion... =========== The other old version, from a Mr. Cornford, is intriguing, but somehow it just doesn't seem to come together. It starts in A, moves to D, then lurches back to A. I think something's missing from it. (This seems to be the version in the Mudcat MIDI's.) |
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01 Nov 10 - 01:27 PM (#3020874) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Jim Carroll "OK Jim, it was late and I was tired." Sorry Anglo - I was tired and it was early - not very good in the mornings nowadays. Jim Carroll |
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01 Nov 10 - 01:42 PM (#3020887) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters > The tune from the Cranstones is simpler as far as notes & chords go, but it has the problem that it has a huge range - an octave plus a fifth. (I suspect it started out life as a dance tune, not a vocal tune.) No wonder it took two people, one male and one female, to provide it. < It does indeed have a large range, leeneia, although I think I could just about manage it, and the fact that it was collected from a married couple doesn't necessarily mean they took it in turns to sing phrases. That would usually happen only with dialogue / response songs. More likely they both knew the song and contributed different verses - ten verses is a really full version. My experience with dance tunes is that more of them started life as songs than the other way round. But we don't know in this case. Certainly a wide range seems to be typical of the different variants. > The other old version, from a Mr. Cornford, is intriguing, but somehow it just doesn't seem to come together. It starts in A, moves to D, then lurches back to A. I think something's missing from it. < Works fine for me as a mixolydian tune in A! In fact I think it's more interesting than the other one... |
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01 Nov 10 - 02:05 PM (#3020907) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: The Sandman i have a feeling, Tony Rose adapted the tune, So that it would suit EC accompaniment, I have a recollection of a conversation with him at fighting cocks[kingston] folk club about 30 years ago. but what would i know apparantly i cant sing or play the concertina, dont know what the f###,i have been doing for the last 35 years. |
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01 Nov 10 - 02:55 PM (#3020965) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters Singing and playing traditional songs well, Dick? That's what I thought anyway! |
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01 Nov 10 - 06:02 PM (#3021123) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Anglo According to his LP notes, Tony's version came from Somerset via Cecil Sharp. The published Sharp collection has 7 variants, all but one from Somerset. The version from Jane Gulliford of Combe Florey is closest, but only in the first half of the tune. I can't identify the second half of Tony's tune and I would think he played with it. |
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01 Nov 10 - 06:54 PM (#3021171) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: The Sandman he did, he told me.but its great so what the f### |
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01 Nov 10 - 06:57 PM (#3021174) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Artful Codger I must have been tired as well--the Butterworth tune is indeed in major, and I can't think why I though differently last night! A mental flip to the Martin Carthy version, perhaps? At least my gaffe prompted you gaffers to listen up and provide the chords requested. Carthy used a tune collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The liner notes for Shearwater state that Vaughan Williams recorded "this particular version ... from an old man in Hampshire and subsequently had great difficulty in transcribing it, so what he wrote is probably only the merest sketch of the tune." Is this the David Clemens tune sometimes mentioned? What version did Rose base his version on that he'd have had to modify the tune for concertina? Most collected variants are in major and have a simple and common harmonic structure well within the capabilities of the Anglo. I hardly consider an octave and a half "operatic" or even uncommon, factoring in melodic variations; certainly no special challenge. leeneia, please post the MIDI for the Cranstone tune. |
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01 Nov 10 - 10:01 PM (#3021276) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,leeneia I'll send the MIDI to Joe tomorrow. If he's not travelling, it should appear here soon. Brian, I was just joking about it taking two people to sing it. It remains true, however, that many people are perfectly happy with tunes of only five notes. An octave plus a fifth is unusual. |
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02 Nov 10 - 12:31 AM (#3021337) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Anglo Codger, I said above where I am pretty sure Tony based his version. Definitely in the major. And Tony played the English concertina not the Anglo. (That's mine :-) I would say he changed the tune for artistic reasons, not technical ones. And yes, the Carthy version is definitely David Clements. And yes, Good Soldier Schweik, Tony's version is quite lovely. I was just putting the old LP onto a CD, and my iPod, only a few days ago. (Not much to do with Butterworth, though, as it turns out.) |
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02 Nov 10 - 03:50 AM (#3021378) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Artful Codger Thanks, Anglo; I was busy researching/composing my message at the time yours was posted, so I didn't see it till afterwards. And I see Dick mentioned the "EC" but this didn't register as the English concertina, even though that's the type I play. I'd wondered how Tony did such a full yet legato accompaniment: multi-tracking a baritone concertina with portative organ? Nothing to do with Butterworth, but the tunes do have some similarities. leeneia, many people may be perfectly happy with tunes of only five notes, but many peopel are perfectly happy with rap, too. When I sing a five-note tune, I get musical claustrophobia. Even an octave seems restrictive. Maybe we just fish in different melodic waters. |
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02 Nov 10 - 04:30 AM (#3021386) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion I should say that the Tony Rose tune, the one Nic Jones used to sing, & the Butterworth, are all distinctly and recognisably variants of the same air ~~ as related as, say, 'Shepherd O Shepherd', 'If Laws Were Made' in The Beggar's Opera, & 'Greensleeves' as fantasised by Vaughan Williams. ~Michael~ |
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02 Nov 10 - 05:57 AM (#3021423) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters > Brian, I was just joking about it taking two people to sing it. It remains true, however, that many people are perfectly happy with tunes of only five notes. An octave plus a fifth is unusual. < Sorry leeneia! SOH bypass again. I did a quick survey of the range of some common 'folk' tunes for a workshop a couple of years ago, and this is what I came up with: 3 notes: Soul Cake 6 notes: Lyke Wake Dirge 7 notes: Blowing in the Wind 8 notes: Wild Rover; Streets of London; I'm A Rover; Down Where the Drunkards Roll; Recruited Collier; Don't Dilly Dally; Daisy Daisy; Black Velvet Band 9 notes: She Moved Through the Fair; Leaving of Liverpool; Fiddler's Green; Thousands or More; Nightingales Sing; Sally Free and Easy; Seeds of Love; Fields of Athenry 10 notes: Lincolnshire Poacher, Pleasant and Delightful, Grey Funnel Line; Coming Round the Mountain; Star of the County Down 11 notes: Life of a Man; Bonny Bunch of Roses 12 notes: Basket of Oysters Incidentally, it's common for the highest note of a tune to be the dominant or the note above that, so most of those octave-span tunes go from dominant to dominant. And, yes, an octave plus a fifth is unusual, but so is a five noter! |
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02 Nov 10 - 06:00 AM (#3021425) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters > I'd wondered how Tony did such a full yet legato accompaniment: multi-tracking a baritone concertina with portative organ? < I always thought it sounded like a harmonium, too. Yes MtheGM, most of the airs are very similar. I picked the Cecil Sharp / Lucy White version exactly because it was a little bit different. |
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02 Nov 10 - 06:19 AM (#3021436) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion And very fine too, Brian. I find Tony's had the most pleasing lilt. ~M~ |
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02 Nov 10 - 07:23 AM (#3021473) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters I had another listen to the orchestral arrangement of the Butterworth tune, and this is a rough approximation - using a standard first verse as template - of the chords that uses (bearing in mind the string arrangement is very fluid): A (E) (A) D E It's of a sea captain, lived by the sea side oh A C#m F#m C#m D E A And he has courted a fair maid till she's proved with child oh The Tony Rose version we've been talking about (to a different, but closely related tune, and not necessarily in A major, though I'll use it here) had much simpler chording, more like: A E D A It's of a sea captain, lived by the sea side oh A E D E A And he has courted a fair maid till she's proved with child oh The version in Digitrad claims to represent the Frankie Armstrong recording (which is very good, by the way), but it doesn't look very accurate to me. I don't have Frankie's version on CD, but from memory she sings the Vaughan Williams / David Clememt version, and that aint it! Bring on the Cranston! |
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02 Nov 10 - 08:33 AM (#3021503) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters Here's a clicky to MtheGM's version, which uses the same chord pattern as Tony Rose, except in the key of F. F C Bb F It's of a sea captain, down by the sea side oh F C Bb C F And he's courted a young lady until she's proved with child oh Thanks, Michael! |
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02 Nov 10 - 08:38 AM (#3021505) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters Just realised my chords for the Butterworth arrangement weren't lining up right: A (E) (A) D E It's of a sea captain, lived by the sea side oh A C#m F#m C#m D E A And he has courted a fair maid till she's proved with child oh |
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02 Nov 10 - 09:41 AM (#3021552) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion Many thanks right back to you, Brian. Listening again to Tony's version, I find that I have imported quite a lot into my rendering from other sources ~~ e.g. the "fey folks all on board my ship" followed by the drawing of lots. But I have always liked to collate versions, provided there is no pretence of authenticity of origin. ~Michael~ |
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02 Nov 10 - 10:04 AM (#3021565) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters Quite right. All of the English versions of this ballad (except for one from Baring-Gould) have lost that vital element of the supernatural, that makes sense out of the whole story. |
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02 Nov 10 - 10:14 AM (#3021573) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion Indeed: which is why I like the 'Jonah' element, of the ship which won't sail with a thief on board ~~ even tho, ironically, it was the captain himself who put her up to the theft ["Go fetch me some of your father's gold"] ~~ much irony of intention here, eh? True Justice would demand that the black bullet should fall on the captain himself as the 'fey' one: but it's always the woman who cops it, ain't it! ~Michael~ |
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02 Nov 10 - 11:02 AM (#3021616) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,leeneia "And, yes, an octave plus a fifth is unusual, but so is a five noter!" True. I agree with you. A couple years ago, somebody from the Cecil Sharp House asked for the names of pentatonic songs (those with five notes), and eventually somebody here posted an list of them. I wish I could find that list again. It occurs to me that such songs would be good when working with people who have been ridiculed and are convinced that they 'can't sing.' About that MIDI I promised - dentist first, then voting, then the MIDI. |
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02 Nov 10 - 11:05 AM (#3021618) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,crazy little woman "the woman always cops it in the end." Not always. Y'all should perform this one occasionally: http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiMONONGAH.html |
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02 Nov 10 - 11:13 AM (#3021625) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Dave Sutherland "Indeed: which is why I like the 'Jonah' element, of the ship which won't sail with a thief on board" I thought it would be equally likely that the ship wouldn't sail with a woman on board as this was also thought to bring bad luck. It certainly proved impractical in the version that I know as before the ship hits the doldrums the captain is cursing because his lady "needs women but could not find any". I heard a version of this great song on the radio last night which misses out the drawing of lots and it seems incomplete without this part of the ballad included. |
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02 Nov 10 - 12:50 PM (#3021714) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: MGM·Lion Agreed, Dave, which is why I restored it to a version that lacked it. But I also like the bit about how she needed a woman but could not find any, which I remember Alyson McMorland [sp?] & Peta Webb used to sing with great relish, but didn't include that ~~ not sure why. ~Michael~ |
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02 Nov 10 - 02:54 PM (#3021839) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Artful Codger If she needs a woman (to attend her, presumably), they could've dressed up Roger the cabin boy. Worked for Shakespeare. |
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02 Nov 10 - 03:34 PM (#3021879) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Anglo Now it seems to me that Martin Carthy added the fey folk bit, as well as casting black bullets. Both ideas appear in Child's A version, but not in any of the English traditional texts I have seen, apart from black bullets in the rather literary version in the Baring Gould mss. where the black bullet falls on the "undutiful daughter." The last line of the Clements tune (which is the one I attempt to sing) has a leap of a tritone. Frankie Armstrong, who also bases her version on this tune, has changed this to a perfect fifth, which I find creates less tension and is correspondingly less dramatic. |
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02 Nov 10 - 08:59 PM (#3022152) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,PHGH Wow! That was a long read! Thanks for the chords and the info :-) |
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02 Nov 10 - 09:03 PM (#3022155) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Joe Offer I got MIDI files from leeneia. Here's her explanation: Hello, Joe. Would you please submit the attached MIDI's to the thread called Banks ofGreen Willow? The first is in the key of A. The second is 'minorized', with the C#'schanged to C natural. Thanks leeneia Click to play (Cranstone)Click to play (minor)To me, they sound very similar to the tune in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs -Joe- |
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02 Nov 10 - 11:47 PM (#3022221) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,leeneia Thanks, Joe. I tried finding the Penguin book online, but I couldn't. Between yesterday and today, somebody musta put it online! Well, somebody asked for the MIDI's, so there they are. The 'minor' version is what I believe Butterworth used for variety in his symphonic composition, as I mentioned above. This is copied from the EFDSS site (linked above.) It's a hand-written tune collected from Mr. and Mrs. Cranstone of Billingshurst. It is only 8 measures long. The chords for the Cranstone's tune are: p-u|AAE|AAA|BmBmBm|EED|AAA|AAA|BmBmBm|AA If you would like to do the minor variant, simply change the C#'s to C's and the A chords to Am's. |
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03 Nov 10 - 04:04 AM (#3022294) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Joe Offer Hi, Leeneia- We posted the lyrics and melodies for the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs in 2000. -Joe- |
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03 Nov 10 - 06:50 AM (#3022375) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: Brian Peters Thanks for the midi's, leeneia (especially for taking the trouble to add chords). But I'm not sure what you mean by a 'minorized' section in the Butterworth arrangement we've been discussing (this one). I've had a good listen to this now, and what I can hear is that the composer incorporated the Vaughan Williams / David Clements tune as well as the Cranstone air he'd collected himself, plus the tune to a separate song, 'Green Bushes'. We know that he knew about the Clements tune, since it's incorporated in his own notes to the song (see the final one of the Take 6 images of Butterworth's MS): 0.05 Basic theme (Cranstone), once solo, then harmonized 0.38 Swirly romantic stuff incorporating snatch of original theme 1.06 Introduction of the Clements tune 1.14 Composer's variations 1.23 Restatement of Cranstone theme 1.50 New theme (horns) - composers? 2.00 Dramatic / romantic interlude incorporating Clements tune 3.35 Green Bushes tune starts to emerge 3.47 Green Bushes tune proper - strings, oboe, then flute (flat!) 4.55 Clements tune again 5.14 Extended coda Taking the trouble to listen to it properly has left me very impressed with the composer's skill. A lovely piece. Incidentally, if anyone thinks they can hear 'The Cutty Wren' hiding somewhere in the bushes, it's because Bert Lloyd nicked the 'Green Bushes' tune for that particular birdy song. Well, that's my theory. |
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03 Nov 10 - 10:47 AM (#3022510) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: GUEST,leeneia You're probably right. However, even if Butterworth did not modify his short tune, other people can. I'm all in favor of people playing more music, wherever it comes from. |
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03 Nov 10 - 11:29 AM (#3022541) Subject: RE: Chord Req: Banks of Green Willow From: giles earle Taking the trouble to listen to it properly has left me very impressed with the composer's skill. A lovely piece. I quite agree! Butterworth is a wonderful composer, badly under-rated. |